CELLS REMEMBER THE DARK MOTHER

Sicily my dark mother
and other island of light,
mighty land of contradictions, complications
multiplicities and many crossroads.
At last I’ve come to comprehend
my sense of belonging to all those other peoples,
dark others, plants, animals, angels,
to wolf woman and antelope man
to trees and stones that speak.

You are like the old women dressed in black
who live within me
colonized, mixed and mangled
and the holier for it.
You are the reasons I have traveled…
to Africa, to Egypt, to Europe following in the
paths of the dark madonnas,
lived on an island of citrus and lemons
beside my eagle-faced aunt who listened to
and followed the music of her soul
all the while condemning mine.
She was like Sicily,
enigmatic roots called family,
a complex of seeming impossibilities
that eventually became beautiful, whole
a woven tapestry.